Sunday, December 28, 2008

As we always do year after year, we packed up the family and headed to Rupert for Christmas even though we didn't know if we were going to make it because of the snow storm we were having. It is probably a good thing we did because I can't cook and I don't know how we would have made it on our own. Anyways....We usually spend Christmas Eve with Dereck's family and Christmas Day with my family as my dad usually has to work on Christmas Eve. This sure beats rushing around on Thanksgiving and Easter to do two family things and eating two huge meals. So I usually tend to enjoy Christmas more. This year, our Christmas Eve plan fell through when a couple of Dereck's family members became sick. So we did a small thing with his mom and his grandma. Haylee made Santa cookies with Christmas cookie cutters, frosting, and an array of sprinkles and she had a blast. She would not let anyone touch the cookies or eat them because "they were for Santa." I love the fact that she is starting to understand how things work; she is such a little smarty pants (she must get that from her mother). On Christmas morning, everyone woke up and went through their stockings and we all took turns opening our presents. Brooke was even able to grab onto the wrapping paper and try to unwrap her own presents (with a little help of course). After a while, she got tired of trying to unwrap presents and decided she was going to start eating the wrapping paper instead. Haylee got a toy kitchen from my parents and Santa got her a toy gun that shoots rubber bullets and a sled. The gun is a special thing to her because now she can go hunt ducks and birds with her daddy. So here are some of our pictures from Christmas......

Dereck had to work Friday night at midnight so we headed back home that afternoon. Despite the weather being decent and the sun shining, the roads were still horrible and it seemed like it took us forever to get home. When we finally did make it this is what we came home to.....

So I know this post is a little late but I got it done. This next week (January 5th) we are packing up the family and heading to Denver, Colorado for a week. We are going to visit my family and check out a few of the area hospitals as well as the housing. And since we don't do things like this very often or ever, we are also going to take the kids to a couple of fun things and have a mini vacation. So anyways....I probably will not be posting for at least a week or two so until then.....

Monday, December 22, 2008

Brooke turned 4 months old on December 19th. She is the happiest baby and she never ceases to amaze us with her new feats and milestones. I just took her to her 4 month well child check-up and she is 13 lb. 12 oz. and 24 1/4" long.

Brooke is now rolling all over the place which is a good thing and a bad thing. I love to see her roll but I now have to watch her much more carefully to make sure she is not rolling off something. She barely sat on her stomach long enough for me to take this picture. She is also starting to play with toys and make all kinds of different noises.

Brooke is becoming more coordinated with her hands so she is now able to take out her own pacifier and put it back in her mouth which definitely makes my job easier at times.

Brooke is starting to sit up without support at times when she feels like it. But she is definitely sitting with support and is loving every minute of it.

We also decided to start feeding Brooke solid foods this last week. Here she is hooked in to her highchair ready to eat. She is also starting to teeth and she has to chew and gnaw on everything she can get her hands on. So we should have a couple teeth on the bottom in the next month or so.

Of course, she had to make a mess for me by spitting her food out at me and she is giving me a dirty look too.

My daughter already has attitude towards me.

Even though Brooke is such a cute little baby, I love that she is growing up and starting to accomplish new tasks and is on her way to sitting, crawling, and walking. I think Haylee would also love to be able to play with Brooke. Well......I am sure I will have much more to share next month. Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

All of my family is either from Colorado or are Colorado natives and this means that my whole family is big Denver Broncos fans. When we had Haylee, my aunt sent this Broncos outfit for her and I decided to pull it out today and put it on Brooke. I thought it was fitting considering the football season is getting close to being over and because my husband hates the Broncos. So anyways.....here are a few snapshots I took of Brooke in her Broncos outfit. She is now their #1 fan and now we just have to convince my husband to become a fan. He might want to consider trading teams if we decide to move there when I am done with school or else I think he is going to be out of place.

Brooke was watching a football game on the t.v. even though it was not the Broncos game.

I just liked this picture because it looks like she is concentrating really hard on trying to crawl.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

So this year, I got out the Christmas tree about a week after Thanksgiving and there it sat for a good week with no ornaments or decorations on it. Haylee kept bugging me to decorate it and so we decided to do something a little different with our Christmas tree and I just let Haylee loose on it. She decorated the whole tree by herself and enjoyed every minute of it.

So here is the Christmas tree after Haylee got done with it. She didn't do too bad of a job for doing it by herself but I am still going to fix it later on.

I decided to take advantage of the moment.

So here is the Christmas tree after we turned on the lights. If you didn't already notice, most of the lights on the bottom of the tree didn't light. We still can't figure out why they won't light so we decided to just leave it that way and now we can claim we have a true Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year.

Haylee and her pride and joy decorating job.

Another picture of the girls. Brooke could not get her eyes off the lights and decorations. Every time I tried to get her attention to take the picture, she would look at me for about 2 seconds and then her eyes were back on the tree. It is probably a good thing she can't crawl yet or I would have ornaments everywhere. It is hard enough trying to keep the cat out of the tree. Until next time..........

Monday, December 1, 2008

Brooke turned 3 months old on November 19th! It seems like just yesterday that she was born. She is growing up way too fast and continues to surprise us with new milestones she has accomplished. She just started rolling over and before we know it she will be crawling and walking.

Brooke is even trying to walk already even though she may be getting some help from daddy.

Brooke is also starting to try to hold her own bottle. Sometimes she can get enough coordination to accomplish this task. We just happened to catch it this time around. She is growing up way too fast!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

As we always do every year, we went to Rupert for Thanksgiving and ate our two big Thanksgiving meals in the same day. At least we had about 6 hours in between meals to recover. Needless to say we were all stuffed but enjoyed our time with both of our families.

Haylee got to make little foam Christmas trees and a gingerbread house with Dereck's family. She had a blast doing this fun little Christmas project and I have to say that I think I almost had just as much fun helping. Here are just some random pictures we took after our Thanksgiving dinner......

Cody, Haylee, and Brooke all relaxing on the couch. Brooke has that stunned deer in the headlights look on her face....

Daddy with a cheesy smile and Brooke.....

Ehhh?!?......

Eric was trying to get Brooke to laugh......

Since Dereck got a couple days off for Thanksgiving, we decided to hit the Rupert Square on Friday night for the annual Christmas lighting and fireworks. Haylee was so excited to be able to see Santa on a fire truck, the Christmas lights, and the fireworks. It was freezing but it was worth it to see Haylee have such a good time. The lighting on the square was beautiful this year and it got the whole family in the holiday spirit. Now I just need to get the Christmas tree up......

Saturday, November 22, 2008

We finally decided to join in the fun and try out this whole blogging thing. So this is our very first post on our new blog. Time goes by so quickly and and things are continually changing so I figured this would be a great way to keep in touch with everyone and share what is going on in our lives. I get excited for what each new day will bring in our lives and the lives of our children and now I have a way to share this with our family and friends.

Our Family

About Our Family

Dereck and I are high school sweethearts and have been married for 2 years. We have two beautiful girls, Haylee and Brooke Lynn. We are living in Jerome and are in the process of buying our dream house. Kristin is a registered nurse at St. Luke’s Magic Valley Regional Medical Center in Twin Falls where she works on the Women and Children’s unit. Dereck works for Glanbia Milk in Gooding as a whey processer and will hopefully move up soon into a manager position. We have an amazing family and could not ask for anything more out of life right now.